


it's not the cold war but it's sure as hell starting something

by Murf1307



Category: All New X-Factor, X-Men (Comicverse)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Neighbors, Alternate Universe - Still Have Powers, Bad Decisions, Gen, Glitter, Neighbors
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-16
Updated: 2015-01-16
Packaged: 2018-03-07 19:05:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 704
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3179789
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Murf1307/pseuds/Murf1307
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lorna should never have let her half-brother crash on her couch.</p>
            </blockquote>





	it's not the cold war but it's sure as hell starting something

**Author's Note:**

> based roughly on a prompt by tumblr's [golden-horses-like-pears](http://golden-horses-like-pears.tumblr.com) about neighbors and lawnmowers.

“I swear to god, if you don’t go over and yell at your next door neighbor, I’ll do it _for_  you,” Pietro mutters, glowering over his cup of coffee.  
  
Context: it’s four a.m.  Earlier than Lorna would want to be up, but she has to go into work in two hours anyway — being in the ‘private investigation’ business meant weird hours sometimes, and this week looked like it’d be shaping up to be one of those weird weeks.  
  
She’s reasonably sure Pietro hasn’t gone to bed yet, because he always had weird sleeping habits, according to Wanda, so she glances at his coffee pointedly.  
  
“I won’t be able to get to sleep anyway with all of this _racket_.”  
  
“It’s a ride-on lawn mower, Pietro,” Lorna pointed out.  “It’s not gonna be quiet no matter when it’s in use.”  
  
Pietro _harrumphs_  and takes a drink of his coffee.  “It’s not even _daylight_.”  
  
Lorna shrugs.  “Trust me, I’ve had weirder neighbors.”  
  
He shakes his head and gets up from the table, retreating with his coffee to the living room nearly instantly.  


* * *

  
Lorna really doesn’t _mind_  her current next-door-neighbor.  He’s never around during the day, and aside from the weird tendency to mow his front lawn at four a.m., there isn’t really any reason to dislike him.  
  
But then, _she’s_  not really around during the day, either.  
  
A couple days after Pietro’s first experience with the lawn-mowing, Lorna comes home to find Pietro absolutely _fuming_.  
  
“He has _cats_ ,” Pietro snarls, in lieu of any actual greeting.  “ _Outside cats._ ”  
  
Lorna raises her eyebrows and pointedly _does not ask._  


* * *

  
Pretty soon, Lorna realizes that her brother and her neighbor have reached a Cold War level of mutual dislike; Pietro having left an angry and unnecessarily insulting note on their neighbor’s porch about the cats, only for the next day to include a visit by a trash bag full of red mulch being dumped over the fence into Lorna’s backyard.  
  
Lorna rubs her temples and settles in for what’s bound to be a _long_  wait — for either Pietro to get another job, or for the neighbor to get sick of this and move.  


* * *

  
Neither of those things happens.  Neither of those things happens, and three weeks after it all begins, Lorna comes home to find her _entire living room doused in glitter._  
  
Including Pietro, who looks like he’s about to go over and commit murder.  
  
Lorna has half a mind to let him, because she could handle the mulch.  She could handle Pietro’s seething, and all of the rest of the shit that’s happened in the last three weeks, but this is just —  
  
_Glitter.  Everywhere._  
  
“Do it,” she says, seething a little herself.  “Whatever you’re about to go do, _do it._ ”  
  
Pietro nods at her, and then disappears in a cloud of glitter…which then proceeds to settle on Lorna.  
  
Fuck.  


* * *

  
Pietro doesn’t come back to the house for several hours, and Lorna admittedly starts to worry a little bit.  She’s gotten a reasonable amount of the glitter off the walls, the couch, and herself, and she figures that’s the best she’s going to be able to do, so she heads next door to make sure she doesn’t need to help her brother hide a body.  
  
“An’ as I was sayin’, cher, I was all like — ah, hello,” says her neighbor as she walks into the house through the open door.  “This your sister?” he asks Pietro, who is buried underneath the same cats that had so infuriated him, and they are purring, bumping their heads against his hands and his chest.  
  
Lorna isn’t sure what’s going on.  
  
“Uh, yes,” Pietro says, looking over at her almost beseechingly.  
  
“I own the house whose living room you glitterbombed,” Lorna says, looking at her neighbor measuringly.  “My name’s Lorna.”  
  
“Remy, Remy LeBeau, cherie,” he say, and at least has the decency to look mildly apologetic.  “Sorry about that.  Remy get carried away sometime, but I don’ mean no harm.”  
  
“I expect you to help us finish cleaning it,” Lorna says, and leaves.  Without Pietro.  
  
Because honestly, given the last three weeks?  
  
Pietro kind of deserves to be held hostage by the neighbor and his cats.  
  
He’ll probably be fine.  
  
Probably.


End file.
